Elevator Scenes
by justcrazy
Summary: Inspired by King Corn, I guess! Set about a month after the Al Smith Dinner. Presumes that Donna is now working on the Santos campaign fulltime and that she & Josh have already reached some sort of temporary truce. Thanks so much for all the reviews!
1. Chapter 1

Glancing at her watch, she realized she was supposed to be halfway across town by now. Closing her eyes, Donna sighed, wondering what was taking the elevator so long. She had been at the Los Angeles campaign headquarters since six that morning, and she had a man waiting for her with 8:00 dinner reservations. She'd called an hour earlier to tell him she was stuck, that maybe they should just take a rain check, but he'd insisted on waiting. "You need a break," he'd said. "We all do." And that was true. And she did like him. So why are you trying to get out of your very first date? she asked herself – pointlessly, because she knew the answer. He wasn't –

"Josh!" Her heart jumped violently at the sudden appearance of the man she _wasn't_ going to dinner with.

"Hey," he said wearily, "I didn't realize you were still here."

"I thought you left with the Congressman three hours ago."

"Yeah, we had the council meeting. Just stopped by to pick up some files on my way back to the hotel."

"How was the meeting?" she asked as they stepped into the elevator, still trying to calm her nerves.

"Fine. No surprises. What are you still doing here?"

"Trying to get caught up for the press conference Monday."

Josh nodded, leaning his head back against the elevator wall. "Long day," he said, looking at her in a way that made her pulse pick back up again. Damn him.

"You wanna grab something to eat?" he asked, as casually as he could, looking first at the floor, then up at her through the corners of his eyes.

Just as casually, she declined. "I'd love to, but I actually have plans tonight."

"A date?" His head shot up, and he was looking her squarely in the face now.

"Something like that."

He seemed to ponder this for a few seconds. "Cancel."

She looked up, truly astonished, but all the justifiably indignant remarks she might have made died on her lips when she saw his face. He was looking at her as honestly as he ever had, and right away she understood that he was asking her to make a choice about much more than dinner. Their eyes were locked now, and she felt her mouth go dry. "You must really be hungry," she said, barely breathing.

"I am." His voice was low and husky; his eyes wouldn't let go of hers.

Donna reached her cell phone without looking and broke away from Josh's gaze only to dial the number. Bram answered on the first ring. "Hi," she said, her voice already taking on an apologetic tone.

The elevator doors opened, and she heard his answering "hello" both through the phone line and from six feet away, where he stood leaning against a chair in the lobby. He grinned slyly and flipped his phone shut as Donna stepped towards him. She saw his shoulders stiffen almost imperceptibly when he caught sight of Josh, but that was nothing compared to the change in Josh's face when he realized her date had come for her. And that her date was Bram. He smiled at the younger man, but she could feel him withdraw from her instantly and completely.

"I thought I might have to drag her away from her desk," Bram said, looking at Josh, attempting to lighten what felt like a strangely heavy atmosphere. "I keep telling her she needs to have some fun."

"Good luck," Josh said, walking quickly toward the door. "Democrats don't usually get very far."

Donna simultaneously felt her cheeks flush hot pink and her blood run cold. Josh Lyman could go to hell.


	2. Chapter 2

It was all Josh could manage to get to the door and out of the building before slamming his fist into the nearest flat surface. What in the HELL just happened! he screamed at himself. Had he lost his mind in less time than it took to go 200 feet in an elevator? Had he _come on_ to Donna? Asked her to cancel a date to be with him? Was she actually going on a _date_ with _Bram_? He snorted in disgust as he threw himself into a taxi and slammed the door shut behind him. Nothing against Bram – he'd always liked the guy, but it had taken him all of – what? – three weeks to home in on Donna? And she'd said _yes?_

It surprised Josh when he realized that he wanted to cry. As quickly as it had flared, his anger began to subside, and he was left with an all-too-familiar ache in the pit of his stomach. It was the feeling that always came with thinking about Donna – a sense of failure, of self-pity, and overwhelming regret. Things had always been so complicated between them – he had been her boss, after all, for most of the nine years they'd known each other. But there had been moments, some lasting only seconds and one, in Germany, that went on for days, when he'd felt the ground shifting beneath them and known he'd had the power to change everything. Not that he felt at all certain of her reception, but he knew without a doubt that nothing would ever be the same between them if he dared to cross that thin, irrevocable line.

And so, every time, he had backed away. Until tonight. When she'd told him she had a date, the feeling had come over him all at once that he had just about run out of chances. Fear had rocketed through his body, and with a sense of being in free-fall, he'd asked her to cancel. Thinking back, Josh realized for the first time that she had agreed. The way she had looked at him. . .she'd been calling Bram to cancel, she'd picked _him_ without hesitating or asking questions. Even under the circumstances, this delayed epiphany might have thrilled Josh if it hadn't been immediately followed by the memory of what he'd said to Bram. Good luck! Something about her penchant for Republicans? Had she said anything in response? What did –

"Sir? Sir? We are here, sir."

"Hm?"

"We are here."

Focusing his gaze, Josh realized the taxi had pulled up to the hotel. He gave the driver a twenty without really looking at the fare and got out. Forcing himself to pass up the bar, he went straight to his room and tried to pretend that it was any other night. He even went so far as to open one of the files that had brought him back to the office and into the middle of this nightmare. The words were indecipherable, the numbers meaningless, and it wasn't more than three minutes before he had thrown the entire folder across the room, scattering papers everywhere.

The feeling that he had run out of chances and time was closing in on him. Images of Donna's face flashed before his eyes as if he were dying. All his worst, oldest fears of loss circled the room like vultures biding their time. He pulled at his hair and desperately tried, by willpower and sheer force of habit, to rein himself in. He couldn't understand why he was coming undone now, at this precise moment in time. Even watching Colin at her bedside in Germany, he had been able to maintain some sense of composure. So why had a date with Bram pushed him over the edge?

_Because it took him three weeks,_ a voice in his head practically screamed. _Because you've had NINE YEARS! Because if you let her go again, it's game-over. _Josh paced the room like a caged animal for nearly an hour before concluding that he would lose it altogether if he couldn't find her, talk to her, make her listen to him. What he would actually _say_, he had no idea, but he knew that if he let himself think about it much longer, he'd never get past the door.

The lobby was fairly deserted by the time he got downstairs. There were muffled shouts and laughter from the direction of the bar, but only a few people talking quietly in the chairs around him. Just on the off-chance, he had the desk clerk try Donna's room a few times before he took a seat tucked inconspicuously into an alcove. What exactly he would do when she and Bram came walking in together, Josh Lyman, political mastermind and strategist extraordinaire, hadn't the slightest clue.

The next ninety minutes were among the most tortured of his life. The more time that passed, the longer they were gone, the more convinced he became that nothing he could say to her would matter. Every cell in his body told him to get up and walk away, but he remained sitting, motionless, until finally they were there, not fifteen feet away, talking easily and laughing as they headed for the bank of elevators at the back of the hotel.

Josh leapt to his feet, wanting to call her name, but no sound came out of his mouth. He stood there, rooted to the floor, and watched helplessly as Donna and Bram passed by without even a glance in his direction. They were closing in on the elevators, and Josh was desperately trying to make himself move, yell, do anything to stop them. But before he could, a sizable group of campaign volunteers in various states of drunkenness rushed out of the bar and dragged, first Bram, then Donna, back in with them. As suddenly as they had appeared, they were gone.

Stunned, Josh just stood there. For the second time that night, he found himself wondering what had just happened. Why had he frozen? What in the hell was the matter with him? After a few minutes trying without much success to calm down, he began to make his way to the bar, determined to find her, even if it meant causing a scene in front of every barfly volunteer in the entire state of California. He'd taken only a few steps when he heard her call, "See you tomorrow, Angie!" And then she was out the door, headed again for the elevators.

"Donna! Donna, wait!"

She didn't stop. Josh couldn't tell if she'd heard him or not, but he wasn't going to let her get away again. Running after her, he crossed the lobby in seconds and reached her side just as she pressed the up arrow. Closing her eyes, she sighed. "Don't, Josh. Just leave me alone." The resignation in her voice made his stomach twist.

The elevator door opened, and he followed her inside. "Donna, listen to me. I'm sorry about before. I know I was an ass. Please just listen."

She reached around him and hit the button for her floor. Staring straight ahead, she said, "I don't want to do this any more. I can't, Josh."

"Do what?" His voice sounded ragged in his ears.

"Play this game. Keep wondering what it is you want from me, why we can never get past – "

"Get past what?"

"Nothing."

"What, Donna? Get past what?"

When she finally whirled around to face him, her cheeks were flushed and her eyes glowing with anger. It occurred to him, not for the first time, that he had never seen a more beautiful woman in his life.

"No, Josh! Just stop. I'm not doing this any more. Do you know, I should have had a great night tonight! I was at a 4-star restaurant with a lovely man who is, you might be surprised to hear, actually _interested_ in me, and all I could think about was _you_ and wonder how it could be so easy for you to humiliate me like that and – "

"Please, Donna, just listen to me! I'm trying to explain!"

"No! No. You can save your breath because I'm not listening."

The elevator came to a stop, and the doors opened onto the 18th floor, where Donna and most of the staff were staying. As she turned to step into the hallway, Josh felt the entire world go still. There were no sounds but his own breathing; he couldn't see anything but her. Finally, quietly, he said it.

"I'm in love with you."

Donna froze mid-stride, and her left hand went up to the wall at her side. For the longest moment of Josh's life, she stood that way, unmoving. Then, as if in slow motion, she turned to face him.


	3. Chapter 3

They were the very last words that Donna had expected to hear from Josh Lyman, and for a second, she couldn't move, couldn't breathe, was sure her heart had stopped beating. Her first discernible thought was that she would have to hear him say it again – she wasn't sure how many times it would take – to believe that he'd said it all. When she turned around to him, her expression registered shock more than anything.

"What did you say?" she asked, a little breathlessly.

Just at that moment, another elevator arrived on the floor, and they could hear loud conversation and laughter as the doors began to open. Afraid they were about to be accosted by another band of merrymakers, Josh grabbed Donna's wrist, pulling her back into the elevator with him, and automatically punched the button for his floor.

He watched the number 22 light up and felt himself transfixed by the small, illuminated circle, unable to look back up into her searching gaze. He wasn't sure what he'd expected her reaction to be, but he hadn't anticipated having to repeat himself without some assurance that she felt. . ._something_. In her face, he'd seen only disbelief.

"Josh. . ." Her voice was both a question and a plea, and he couldn't help but raise his eyes to meet hers. But not even a second later, the elevator granted him one last reprieve, stopping at his floor before he'd had a chance to respond. Josh stepped out quickly, then turned around and held his arm out for Donna to follow. She didn't move. Alarmed, he finally found his voice.

"Donna?"

"What did you say?" It was more of a demand this time, and she looked unflinching into his eyes.

Josh cleared his throat and glanced quickly over his shoulder. His room wasn't ten doors down. "I don't want to do this in the hallway. Please?"

Waiting only a beat, she silently relented, and followed as he led her to his room, stopping to pull the key from his back pocket and opening the door on the first try. She felt like she was walking in a fog, her entire attention focused on the words he had said two minutes earlier and was now either unwilling or unable to repeat.

It almost didn't register that she was walking into Josh's hotel room until she saw his coat thrown across a chair, his briefcase on the floor, and papers covering virtually every other surface in the room. What in the hell had gone on here? She looked back at him quizzically, but he was still facing away from her with his hands on the door he had just shut behind them. It looked as though he might be contemplating an escape route.

And in truth, he was. Now that the initial jolt of courage was fading, true panic had started to set in. Josh felt his mouth go dry, and he was pretty sure that his hands were shaking in spite of their death grip on the doorknob.

Watching him from across the room, Donna felt thrown back to a time when she was certain no one could read Josh Lyman better than she could. In spite of everything that had come between them since then, it took nothing more than the stiff line of his shoulders to tell her that he needed her to take the lead.

At that moment, though, it felt more like taking a leap. Off a cliff. Without a parachute. To certain death. Trying to keep her voice steady, she began. "I thought I was imagining. . ."

Josh lifted his head at her words, but didn't turn.

"In Germany. . .after the surgery. . ."

His heart came to a sudden stop before beginning to beat frantically against his chest. _Don't go there_, he pleaded silently.

"You were there when I woke up, and the way you looked at me. . .it made me feel. . .safe. Like everything was going to be OK, like I was going to be OK. . .

Her words were picking up pace. His hands let go of the door.

"And I would have sworn, in that moment, that something had changed between us. I was sure of it, until I got back. And then. . .I don't really know what I was expecting. Not any dramatic declarations or – God! Maybe I was. But everything was the same. Nothing had changed! You were my boss. You were glad I was back at my desk, you were jealous of my flowers, but you were definitely not in love with me."

At this, Josh finally turned around to face her. Unshed tears were shining in her eyes, and he knew that the emotions breaking the surface in her voice had been held under for far, far too long.

"Because if you were. . .wouldn't it have mattered that I almost died? Wouldn't _something_ have changed?" Donna's voice finally broke, and a tear spilled down her cheek. Impatiently, she wiped it away and kept going. In spite of herself, she was getting angry.

"And so I decided that I'd imagined it, the way you looked at me in the hospital. I must have seen things that weren't there. It must have been the drugs. That's what I told myself. And I must have told myself that ten thousand times, but I _still _couldn't believe it, not entirely, until I left and you didn't care! What was I supposed to think then, Josh? So really. . .you're going to have to tell me what it was that you just said in the elevator. Because I don't believe it!"

Josh stood staring at her in amazement, his own anger tempered at first by the shock of everything that she had just said to him. _Wouldn't it have mattered if she almost died? I left and you didn't care?_ In a heartbeat, Josh was across the room, standing directly in front of her, and she was stunned by the expression on his face. He was absolutely furious.

"You think it didn't _matter_ to me when you almost died?" he practically shrieked. "Why in the hell do you think I was in Germany at your bedside in the first place! I went halfway across the world to get to you because it didn't _matter_ that you almost died? I thought _I_ was going to die, Donna! All I could think about was how I had put you in that hospital."

She flinched at the pain in his voice, and for some reason, it made his anger subside. Softly, raggedly, he finished, "If you hadn't come through, I don't know what I might have done."

Donna felt a shiver go through her at the intensity of his words, and hope flickered in her heart. But the cruelly detached voice that she had relied on to distance herself from him for the past year and a half wouldn't be easily silenced. _So it was guilt_, she told herself._ It was guilt that made him come to me._

But looking up into his face, she couldn't bring herself to say those words out loud. He looked so tired all of a sudden, and so vulnerable. She wanted to comfort him, and without thinking, lifted a hand to his cheek. He closed his eyes at her touch, and his hand went up to hers, his fingers encircling her wrist. It would be so easy just to stop now, he thought to himself. Just to kiss her now. But for some reason, he couldn't. He had to get through this if it killed him.

Opening his eyes, he lowered her hand from his face, but didn't let it go. In a rough whisper, he asked, "How could you think that I didn't care when you left?"

Donna's heart was hammering in her chest. She couldn't stop staring at his mouth. They were standing so close, it would only take the slightest movement forward. . .

But his words brought her back to reality, and she pulled her wrist free from his grip. Looking back up into his eyes, she realized with some surprise that her anger had drained away. And without it to distract her, all she felt was sadness at the way their seven years together in the White House had ended.

"You never called," she whispered back. "Not once."

"You left me," he challenged.

"I left my job."

"You left _me_, without so much as a 'see ya later!'"

"You didn't give me a chance, Josh! I had a whole speech prepared for that lunch date that you broke SIX TIMES. I was going. . ." Donna stopped and sighed. She'd somehow lost conviction in the argument that she'd had with herself hundreds of times. If now wasn't the time for honesty, then when? "OK. You're right! I should have done something more to make you listen to me. I should have said good-bye. I should have said thank you."

Josh looked up to see another tear spill down her cheek. He wanted to wipe it away and pull her into his arms, but he was frozen again, unable to make himself move. The feelings that he had pushed away ever since she'd left had come rushing back as she spoke, and he felt paralyzed.

Donna wiped her own tears and pushed herself to keep going. She knew she couldn't stop now. "So thank you. Thank you for everything that you taught me, and for taking me back when I left, and for letting me hire myself in the first place. It was the best thing that ever happened to me, working at the White House. . .being with you."

Not working with you, _being_ with you. The difference wasn't lost on Josh, and his courage began creeping back. "I never thought you would leave," he whispered.

"Josh. . ." There was some exasperation in Donna's sigh.

"No -- I mean that I took it for granted that you'd always be there to take care of me, keep me sane –" At the ironic look in her eyes, he grinned. "Or at least honest."

She smiled a little, but he was suddenly serious again and took a step closer. The breath caught in her throat as he leaned forward and took her hands in his. "I think I knew from the second we met that I'd be lost without you. And I have been." Their eyes, full of tears, were locked on each other. "Every day, not having you there – every night, wanting you with me – it's been hell on earth. And I thought it couldn't get worse until tonight. . .and the idea of you with anyone but me. . .I need you, Donna. I love you." Shaking, Josh brought his hands up to her face and smiled gently. "I'm in love with you," he whispered. "That's what I said in the elevator."

Donna's tears slipped unheeded down her face as she beamed up at man she had loved for what seemed like her whole life, forever. His words had washed over her, leaving no trace of doubt or anger or fear. "I love you, too, Joshua Lyman; I always have." Leaning into him, she whispered, "I always will," before, finally, their lips met in a kiss that would render them speechless for the rest of the night. . .


End file.
